CNN news chief starts Iraq blog hub
There’s been no shortage of mainstream or traditional journalists leaving their jobs to join or start online ventures over the last little while (the sign of a new era, or a bubble forming?), including The Politico — which just gained a couple more staffers from Time magazine and Bloomberg, as this article notes. Now the former head of news for CNN has started a media venture focused on Iraq.
According to a piece in Editor & Publisher, Eason Jordan — who quit in 2005 after 23 years with the network — has set up IraqSlogger to focus on the war in Iraq and the Middle East in general. The project is an offshoot of Praedict, a news and information service that Jordan runs which provides briefings on hot spots in the developing world, based on data and analysis by a team of security specialists and journalists.
IraqSlogger has news reports from Iraq, analysis and other coverage, including a tally of attacks and casualties. E&P says that “One of the site’s unique and most valuable services is a daily roundup of news from Iraqi newspapers that few in the U.S. media have ever bothered to translate. Jordan has Arabic speakers here and in Iraq providing this service.”
And a note at the end of the E&P story says that the article produced a lot of commentary from conservative bloggers, who asked Jordan to look into stories from Associated Press (about the burning of six Iraqis) which used as a source a police captain named Jamil Hussein, who the U.S. military claims doesn’t exist. Jordan offered to fly blogger Michelle Malkin to Iraq to check the reports, and she has accepted.
Part of the backstory here is that Jordan resigned from CNN after making comments that allegedly accused the U.S. military of deliberately targeting journalists.
Update:
As has been noted in the comments (by Mr. Pelton himself) the IraqSlogger site was co-created by Robert Young Pelton, the Canadian-born author (The World’s Most Dangerous Places), documentary filmmaker, “adventurer” and security expert. Meanwhile, there’s a great feature on Eason Jordan and IraqSlogger at the New York Observer.
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(On Dec 14th, 2006 at 4:22 pm)
Damn Mathew….you didnt even notice that a Canadian is half owner of the business. :))
I wouldn’t wallow in all that cardboard “right wing, left wing” stuff. Its all smoke and mirrors to take the “MSM” (as they like to call it) out to the woodshed for not hiring them.
We are on the ground in Iraq with mostly Iraqi staff and contributors and covering the single most important story in the US the way it should be. Accurately, widely and frequently!
Please give it an eyeball minute or two and tell us what you think.
best!
Robert Young Pelton
(On Dec 14th, 2006 at 5:22 pm)
Just wondering whether that Malkin ticket *has* to be a return flight. :[
(On Dec 14th, 2006 at 5:27 pm)
I never thought of that…. I better check what right wing bloggers go for at the Fallujah kidnap market… :)))
No we want her to be safe, get the answers and come back alive…as I like to say…
RYP
(On Dec 14th, 2006 at 10:54 am)
My apologies, Robert — I will update that post pronto. Thanks for dropping by to point that out. And I will definitely be following the site. Best of luck with it — and with Michelle